Nothing Man
by TJ Robinson
Summary: Post-X3. Magneto-centric one-shot. Erik reflects upon the night at Alcatraz Island.


A/N: This here's a one-shot inspired by the song "Nothing Man" by Pearl Jam. Seeing as this is first thing I've written in eight months, constructive criticism would be absolutely awesome. Much obliged.

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**Nothing Man**

Daylight struck up over the horizon like a lit match and cast a faint glow over the empty street, only to be covered over a few minutes later by a sheet of metallic gray clouds. It may have been wintertime, but he still sat on a discreet little park bench near an empty beach covered with a light dusting of snow, watching as the skies changed to match his mood... or perhaps it was just coincidence.

No matter. Nothing really seemed to matter much to him any more, since his sole purpose for living was extinguished before his eyes. He reflected back to the tides of battle and allowed the memories to wash over him, cleansing his urge to let his blue eyes release their essence and bathe his face with the oncoming waves of grief.

During the battle, in the few moments he had spent sadistically torturing the pitiful beast beneath his feet, another beast had come and cowardly yet ultimately defeated him from behind. Although a few scraps of his former might remained, he knew that, in his eyes, he had become a mockery of himself.

Despite being Jewish, Erik had fair knowledge of the story of Jesus Christ. At the moment, he remembered that as Jesus was crucified on the cross, a plaque was placed above his head bearing the letters INRI. The plaque was meant to ridicule the dying man; the letters composed an acronym of a Latin phrase that meant, "Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews."

But his faith didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Instead, it was written in Tanakh that the Messiah would be a descendent of King David through King Solomon, and that he would rule during the Messianic Age. Before he had been defeated by the two beasts, he might have thought that he himself was the true Messiah. After all, had he not tried to establish a time of peace and brotherhood on Earth, the given duty of the savior?

However, before he could accomplish his goal, he had been stripped of his powers and his dignity. That night on Alcatraz Island, he had suffered the same fate as those who had been confined within the walls of the prison complex, the transformation of which had only changed the physical appearance of the building, but had kept the same basic purpose its original creators had intended to have. He had suffered for his cause yet he knew he was not a martyr in the least bit. While he highly doubted that he was _the _Messiah, he at least knew that he had been a savior of some sort.

If only for a short while, Magneto had saved mutantkind from persecution. He had raised mutantkind and caused humanity to respect them as the superior race. Using the phrase he had once used to describe a heated young man, they had been gods among insects, with him as their leader and savior. He had come so close to achieving his goal — _their_ goal — but instead he, like so many others, had given into the sweet allure of power and allowed it to corrupt him. Though he could not manipulate flame like one of his young associates, he had stilled managed to set fire to himself, all while he had been hanging from his cross as a so-called savior.

No, not just himself — he had set fire to himself and all those who associated with him while they were crucified on their crosses in an attempt to save future generations from the fate that had befallen on them.

His right-hand woman had suffered a fate worse than death: she sacrificed her powers to save his, and in return, he abandoned her naked, trembling form on the floor of the steel convoy. His dearest friend was dead. He'd watched as his friend had been obliterated by the immense unconscious power that his former student, that fiery redhead, had possessed.

That student was dead now as well, or so he had come to hear in recent weeks, and although she held within her the firebird, his flames still reduced her to smoldering ashes out of which nothing would ever be born. It was said that she had been killed by her own lover, yet another victim of his uncontrollable blaze. Countless others had been set afire by him as well. Some were merely singed by the inferno; others were killed and cremated. In any case, they had all been burned on their crosses in the name of hate, making themselves a hypocritical presentation for bigoted fools everywhere, a spectacle for those who probably had committed the same act as them at some time or another.

Now that he had thought back on it, there had actually _been_ a ring of fire burning near the shores of the island the night of the battle. A raging blaze on the water... it was just one of the many contradictions that composed his life, but it certainly wasn't the worst. No, the worst paradox was that he had become everything he had hated, but had loved himself for doing so.

In terms of magnetism – something in which he had obvious expertise – he was a positive and a negative. But since he was always one for the dramatic flair, he preferred to think of himself as dark and light, love and hate, fire and water, alpha and omega. Although he was usually the antagonist in every situation, within himself he was always both sides of the opposition; he fought a battle within himself, and it resulted in both contrasting sides defeating each other.

But, no matter which way he put it, the point was plain and simple: He was nothing.


End file.
